Chapter 1: The return to Anadora

It was early in the morning when the sun had still not risen, and a strong outgoing tide was attempting to hamper the progress of a ship approaching a port from the south. However, no tide could have delayed this vessel for long which, under the skilful eye of a weathered captain, entered the harbour a full two days early.

An unexpected arrival before dawn meant that the Harbour Master had to be hurriedly awakened by the shouts of excited sailors from outside his window. He then hurried downstairs to direct the newly arrived ship to its berth whilst hitting his head only once on a low doorway in his cramped quayside cottage - quite an impressive feat in itself. Then he went on to perform a second miracle in managing the mooring of the square-rigged vessel entirely by himself with the majority of dockhands still comfortably asleep.

Inside of his own gently rocking cabin was Kira. He had woken to the sounds of the ship docking and was lying attentively in a hammock, fully clothed and waiting for someone to come down and get him.

He was now a single month away from his sixteenth birthday. He had spent the last decade studying in the royal court of Illyria as insurance that his own people would hold up their side of a recently negotiated truce. However, saying that he was now returning home would be an overstatement because, in spending so much time away, he felt closer to the elderly advisors and tutors of the Illyrian court than his own family and much less the common folk.

From what he had heard, the kingdoms that he had left behind as a child were struggling with their newfound independence from Arkadia – a nation that had collapsed even before he had left - because of the rampant barbarism that had sprung up with the lack of central authority. His father's dynasty, who had once ruled over Arkadia, and thus western Anadora, was now living the life of simple local nobles administrating over a small patch of land on the western seaboard. They constantly feared that the kingdom that had toppled Arkadia, Krinestadt, would come to finish them off, lest they become a symbol for the west to rally behind. What made their situation even more pathetic was their insistence on still having their domain known as Arkadia, despite the nation's prior demise.

Ironically, Krinestadt was a nation suffering under the weight of its own success. Arkadia had practised a system of regional deities, as opposed to Krinestadt's state-supported church, and Arkadia also had several cultural differences which had made its territories hard to integrate. This meant that once the central government had fallen, with the capture of Arkadia's imperial palace at Ostermark, Krinestadt had been unable to fully absorb the available lands; so many independent city-states and minor trading nations had now sprung up along Anadora's flank. Meanwhile, Krinestadt had been forced to embark on the slow process of absorbing Arkadia's former territories, one after another, into itself whilst using Ostermark as its western base of administrative operations.

Just as Kira was drifting back into his dreams, there came a knock at the cabin's door. Jerked awake once more, he rushed to open it, revealing the vessel's captain standing outside. He was a practical man, and he still dressed in a well-maintained uniform, despite having worked out on deck overnight, whilst the rest of his crew had been bundled up with warm clothes such as scarves and gloves.

"It's time for you to get off ma boat," he stated before adding "Your majesty." with just a hint of sarcasm.

Had Kira cared, he could have called him out on his tone and pressured him to apologise, but instead, he simply nodded and gathered up his bags to follow the man outside. This was the sort of treatment that he hated. People seemed to expect him to be a leader, being born into a failing dynasty and all, but he would have been happier studying abroad.

A cold sea breeze was blowing out on deck, and Kira repeatedly had to brush his black hair out from his eyes to pay careful attention to the cluttered ropes and equipment laid out as he followed the captain over to the gangplank. At its base were several armed men standing in a state of attention, most likely waiting to receive him.

"Off you go then, laddie." prompted the captain with his accent thickening, "No point in yer standin' up on deck."

Following the man's instructions, Kira cautiously edged forwards, not wanting to trip despite having never really gained his sea-legs – something which had been an object of amusement among the crew. The constant attention was another thing that he despised; whilst he had been carefully edging down the gangplank, both the ship's crew and men at the bottom had been watching him intently, ready to pick up on any mistake. What he would give to be able to walk without notice. Thoroughly not enjoying their attention, he quickened his pace and hurried over to meet the men waiting on the dock.

One of them then split off from the group and introduced himself as Captain Gavis. The man was probably a mercenary because he had allowed a scraggly beard to grow, much out of keeping with military discipline. Kira found that this was almost laughable, was the dynasty to which he belonged really so weak as to rely on mercenary fighters to transport its heir? Did they have no retainers? Similar warnings of a land fallen on hard times were all around him as he waited patiently for the ship's captain to load up the supplies he had been offered as payment for Kira's passage and made his crew look lively in checking that everything was present and correct.

The quiet harbour was gradually becoming busier as the sky brightened. Still, there was little idle chatter and, as the people shuffled around to complete their early business, almost all of them were poorly dressed in hard-worn clothing. A few were making an effort, and bright women bumbled about talking louder than the rest of the onlookers. They continuously tried to engage in conversation with sailors who did not seem to register their presence at all. There being many visible houses was also a sign of the times. A dock of this size should have been lined with shops and warehouses, all competing to receive many customers from far off lands, but instead, it appeared as though many such places were long closed and were turned over to temporary residences.

Taking all of this into account, Kira edged over to Captain Gavis, once the man had finished his talk with the ship's captain, and asked, "Have the past few years been hard here?"

"Perhaps," responded Gavis, smiling happily, "But, it's made for good business opportunities for the likes of us… we can hardly fulfil all of the requests!"

"That's hardly the sign of a healthy society," Kira remarked.

"It's a sign of it being a good time to be a mercenary is what it is." and with that, Gavis returned to his men and sent several out to collect their horses from a local inn that they had occupied earlier in the week.

Great, thought Kira as he inwardly groaned, I've not only been forced to return to some home land that I hardly know, but these men are just going to be loyal to the highest bidder, and my family doesn't seem able to bid at the current time. Seeing the look of disdain on Kira's face, Gavis called over, "Don't worry lad, we only appear a bit messy because your early arrival forced us to get up sharpish; you can trust the fifteen of us to look out for ya." even though Gavis' beard could hardly have grown in a night.

With the horses and packs gathered, they mounted up on the quayside and moved through the town towards a road heading east; it was marked as going to Neuverie 40Nd and Ostermark 250Nd. These stone markers had originally belonged to the much older Marxan civilisation that had once ruled over much of Anadora. They had now been repurposed with the names of modern cities and stood like giant tent pegs looming over the landscape, twice as tall as a man, serving as an odd sort of reminder of the greater civilisations that had come before their time.

As they rode out onto the road, there was a much more obvious sign of desperation presented to them: around the exterior of the town, a low barricade had been put up to prevent raids. From its appearance, it was evident that it had been built in a hurry and had not been meant to last, but the local people hadn't yet found a reason to take it down despite its lack of repair.

"Bandits," remarked Gavis, eyeing Kira's interest in the ramshackle fortifications.

"I'm aware," said Kira, but suddenly curious, he added, "But where do so many bandits sell their stolen goods. Surely the local people wouldn't trade with them?"

"Well, they tend to take perishable goods first like foodstuffs, just to sustain themselves, you see, and the valuable stuff they cart to the east."

"So Krinestadt supports them?" questioned Kira, trying to infer Gavis' meaning.

"That's what I hear – it certainly destabilises things around here – but you probably know more about it than me, knowing your position and all."

"Don't count on it," replied Kira, "I've been away for quite some time."

"That I also hear," said Gavis, who then spurred his horse and rode a little way ahead to end the conversation and begin a new one with one of his demi-human comrades further up the road.

Demi-humans had always appeared as a bit of an oddity to Kira. He had heard that they got their name on account of the cat-like ears mounted atop their heads and their tails. However, other than these particular features, they resembled humans. What was odd about them is that they appeared around the same time as several great plagues, and people had been fairly suspicious of them ever since.

Around midday, they had made it some fifteen nodes (15 Nd) down the road when it began to rain; heavily so. This meant that, despite the cover from the surrounding woodlands that they had recently entered, the dirt road quickly turned to mud which ended up being churned up by the horse's hooves.

On account of the dense foliage and the opening up of the heavens, they did not stop to eat and instead continued onwards, miserable and cold, whilst keeping on the lookout for potential ambushes. Such an attack should have been uncommon on armed groups but, given everything, it was wise to remain vigilant against them. The rations that were handed back to Kira by the demi-human up front were wet through by the time he got to eat them, and his damp clothes chafed at his legs with the rhythmic movement of the horse.

After a time, pulled from his thoughts by the irritations of the situation, the only amusement he could gather was found in watching the demi-humans tail, now hanging limply alongside their stallion, getting more and more waterlogged. However, he remained hopeful, knowing that because the journey was 40 nodes long, it would likely not be made in one day with their current pace. Therefore, Captain Gavis would have likely arranged some sort of accommodation for the night as they carried no tents or camping supplies with them.

Sure enough, as the sky darkened further and began to thunder, a small mining community came into view. They were situated atop a rocky outcrop beside the road, which created a natural barrier to anyone trying to enter the hamlet whilst avoiding the main route up. Also sensing that their time on the road was at an end, the horses increased their pace as the group turned off to head towards it. The path up to the plateau clung to the side of a steep incline and had to repeatedly change direction to make itself gradual enough for carts to make it to the top.

As they edged closer to its end, lightning repeatedly illuminated a minor gatehouse that straddled two rises in the land and was manned by three soldiers sheltered from the rain under a covered area. One time, when the thunder following a lightning strike rumbled particularly loudly, one of the men flinched, and Kira briefly heard the other two's laughter as they slapped him on the back, undoubtedly making light of his timidness.

Kira turned to the nearest mercenary and asked, half rhetorically as he already suspected the answer, "Why would there be soldiers here and not at the port town?"

"Because this is the only place that brings in any income," the man replied, "But, there's hardly a profit in it when paying the men needed to guard the ore against bandits."

The guards had now noticed Captain Gavis' party, and one had disappeared from the wall to tell of their arrival. Getting closer, Gavis went ahead alone, and the rest of the party stopped some distance back to try and appear less threatening to the men atop the wall. The conversation that followed between Gavis and the gatekeepers seemed to take an eternity, so Kira began to wonder if he really had arranged accommodation at all. In his irritable mood, he lamented that he wouldn't put it past the Captain to foolishly expect such a small community to open its doors to armed strangers. Shivering practically uncontrollably, and with all the men around him repeatedly shifting position to remove weight from sore areas in the downpour, Kira practically resigned himself to a night in the saddle.

However, it was at that late moment, when Gavis looked back over his shoulder and gestured for the group to come forwards that the gates slowly swung inwards to receive them. Maybe the Captain wasn't so useless after all? wondered Kira, adopting a surprised tone within his mind. Beside the gate was a sign labelling the town as Berwick and beyond this was a small marketplace lined by houses and a thatched inn that they made their way towards. Having dismounted and left the horses in the stables, ensuring that they had a dry place to rest for the night, Kira and the rest of the men gathered up their travel bags and filed into the building itself.

Above the gateway, a sign was creaking as it swayed in the wind inscribed with 'The Lost Lion' and a lively image of a slightly bemused looking beast that could only be vaguely described as resembling the lions of Illyria. Inside of the light-filled doorway was a welcome sight indeed. The inn's interior was warm, welcoming and cosy, with low wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling and a roaring fire over in one corner.

Ahead of him, at the counter, Gavis seemed to be having a friendly conversation with the establishment's owner and, from what Kira could hear, it seemed that they knew each other from a while back. Apparently, the inn owner had been a soldier or fellow mercenary a few years prior. Turning back around, Gavis shouted over to Kira, "You're getting room four!" and threw over a key. He then turned back to the counter and began placing orders of food and drink for his men.

Eager to get to bed, Kira went around to the side of the bar and up a steep and winding staircase that creaked under his weight to reach the next floor. He then continued along the corridor that he found at the top until he came to the room labelled with a 4 and went in.

Inside was another quite friendly space that could be best described as snug. The bed along the left of the room took up most of its floor space, and at its head, there was a paned window through which the occasional flash of lightning could be seen. Lighting a candle provided on a table by the window at the end of the room, Kira placed his travel bag on the bed and opened it hoping to change out of his wet clothes. However, the bag's interior was practically flooded with water – so much for it being waterproof – and, as the idea of trying to sleep whilst both wet and hungry was not enticing, he headed back downstairs.

In the main lounge, the former soldier who owned the inn had re-enlisted his whole family to cater for the mercenaries. His wife was in the back cooking, he was handing out drinks, and his daughter was acting as a waitress and handing out merrily bubbling steaming bowls of food.

Pushing his way to the fire's side, Kira sat down, incorporating himself into a semi-circle of men warming themselves from the blaze. Here he found himself next to the demi-human member of the group who pushed a bowl of stew, still warm from the kitchen, into his hands. Having nodded his thanks, he wolfed down the meal and felt the warmth return to his body. It may have been a simple dish, but, like everything else here, it was somewhat comforting, and he found it very filling to eat. After the miserable ride to get to 'The Lost Lion', eating anything warm would have felt like the height of luxury.

By the time he had finished, his clothes had dried through from the fire and, making his excuses to the mercenaries boisterously telling stories of their own bravery, he left them to head back upstairs. Returning to his room, he moved his bag off the bed, got into the bed and promptly fell asleep, only half covered by the provided blanket. Whilst dreaming, he found himself back in an earlier time when he had been living in Illyria.

Stretched out before him, he saw a yellow cityscape unravel itself like a map with sandstone buildings built in neat rows that disappeared far into the distance. Several streets were wider than the others, and these had specific lanes for travel in both directions separated by rows of palm trees swaying gently in the wind, and they were filled with slow-moving carts.

Over to one side was a large circular building with a pit in the middle and stands, packed full of loudly baying people, all around it. With his vision focusing on this structure, Kira found himself watching a younger version of himself, who was standing on a private balcony beside the pit, watching some wild beasts fighting with slaves posing as hunters below, and leaning on the yellow stone guard rail. Standing at his side was an elderly man, dressed in loosely fitting white clothes that were hard to make out clearly in the dream, who Kira recognised as a travelling scholar that he had made an acquaintance with in his time in Illyria.

Also recognising the man, the younger Kira walked over to him, and he instinctively knew that a question was going to be asked, "Are the gates really entrances into other worlds?" said the younger version of himself.

"Yes," replied the old scholar turning and kneeling to face him, "They opened several hundred years ago when the demi-humans came through them, and they have remained open since."

"Then have people gone through them from our side? And did the demi-humans bring diseases with them?" continued the young Kira, with a seemingly endless list of questions.

"Yes, Kira, your land Anadora has not been graced with a gate, but ours has, and we use it to trade with the demi-human nations on the other side." Then after a short pause to watch one particular slave drive a spear through a tiger's neck, he went on, "I don't think that the demi-humans brought illness with them. The historical accounts show that up to fifty percent of all people, including demi-humans coming through the gates, died of disease after their arrival. So, if they had been aware of the diseases, they probably wouldn't have come at all."

He then paused again, this time to wait for the crowd to quieten after the end of the current bout of fighting, and explained, "In fact, I personally believe that it was these plagues that culminated in the downfall of the great Marxan civilisation."

The young Kira started to reply with another stream of questions; "What do you trade and… and…" but just then, the dream faded, and Kira woke to sunlight streaming in through the window and onto his face to brightly herald the dawn.

Feeling surprisingly well-rested, he got up and dressed quickly into a new set of travelling clothes from his bag that had partially dried overnight and headed to the bar. Several mercenaries were already awake (or perhaps they had never slept) who greeted him as he approached. The inn owner's wife was standing behind the bar chatting animatedly with another townsperson. After some time of impatiently waiting, the whole group assembled. They then headed back outside and remounted to continue their journey.

Outside the settlement was another Marxan road marker, reading 15Nd to Neuverie and 225Nd to Ostermark. Good, thought Kira, at yesterday's pace, they would arrive just after midday. But he could not help but question exactly what he would be arriving to, and what would be expected of him once he did.

Thinking back to his scattered early memories to try and prepare himself for his return, he was sure that he had one slightly younger brother, who he could remember playing with outside in a wooded area, and that his father had once taken the time to scold him for causing mischief with the servants in the kitchen. He was also aware that his mother had succumbed to disease some time ago, having been notified by a letter written personally by his father, and that he now had two more siblings who had been born while he had been away - another brother and a sister.

Sure enough, once the sun had passed its peak in the now cloudless sky, they passed over a barren hilltop, and Neuverie came into view.